Treasure Your Dreams

How well rounded is your life? I know for me personally, there have been many times where it was pretty oddly shaped! One of the most valuable concepts I ever learned from Michael Clouse was that you should look at your life like a wheel with 7 spokes — or in other words, the 7 areas of your life.

Each spoke needs to be even (or relatively so) in order for your wheel to roll smoothly across the ground. Otherwise, it will stutter and stop completely.

The Family/Relationship Side:

Reality is, we were created to have relationships — we were created to have friends! How is this side of your life looking?

Do you have a good relationship with your family? Do you have friends in your life that you can count on? If you can answer YES to those questions, then chances are you doing quite well in this department.

Personally, this has been an area I have struggled with in the past. Over the past several months though, I can say without a doubt that my relationship with my family has never been better, and God has blessed me with some pretty awesome friends in my life.

That brings me to the second part…

The Spiritual Side:

How’s yours looking? If you’re wondering “What is this?” then chances are you don’t have it. Whatever your personal beliefs are, you should be living them out fully!

Again, this has been something I have struggled with in the past. About a year ago though, I found this awesome church and as a result have gotten plugged into a couple of study groups. Something I am still actively working on is setting aside time each day to read my Bible — so while this spoke of my wheel may not be perfectly round (and really, are any of them ever perfect?) I have to say I am feeling pretty good about this area.

Moving on…

The Career Side:

Here’s a big one! In fact, you are probably spending about 40 hours a week on your career. How do you like it? Do you feel happy with where you’re at? Is it what you’ve always seen yourself doing? Are you moving forward?

No one likes to be stalled out in their careers. So do a check on yours and see how you feel about it! You don’t need to be living on your dream job in order to be completely happy in this area, but you should probably at least feel like you are moving that direction.

Personally, I love my career. I know that there is not another out there that would be better for me!

The Social/Cultural Side:

What are you doing to move yourself forward in this area? Maybe you don’t even know what this area is… I know I didn’t, until I learned it from Michael Clouse a couple of years ago.

Think of it this way… let’s say you are doing GREAT on the career side of your life. You’ve gotten a couple of promotions, a pretty hefty raise, and during this time you’ve married a great person.

Because of your new status within the company, you are asked to attend a formal dinner, hosted by the CEO. You don your fancy clothes, get into your brand new BMW (hefty raise, remember?) and head out.

Then, during dinner, you proceed to: put your elbows on the table, talk with your mouth full, forget to use your napkin and *gasp* eat your salad with the wrong fork.

See what I’m getting at? As you move forward in your life, you should be doing and learning things that bring you forward culturally as well! Read a few books, go to some plays, maybe study a foreign language! Consider this area to be self education.

Personally, I do read quite a few books — other than that though, there’s not much I do in this area. Something I’ve been wanting to do is brush up on my French (haven’t studied it since high school) — but I just haven’t done it yet. While I don’t feel too terribly out of the loop yet, I know that I need to get on the ball or else I will fall behind in this area.

Something to work at

The Health Side:

Basically there are 3 things in this area: Are you working out? Are you eating healthy? Are you getting enough sleep?

A good exercise program is essential to good health. So go buy you a couple of dumbbells, maybe a pull up bar, and go for a walk a few days a week. One program I recently started and highly recommend (if you’re up to it) is P90X — you can read all about it at http://www.beachbody.com

You also have to eat healthy! Drink those 8 glasses of water a day! Lay off the junk food (I may possibly be the world’s worst in this category) and eat a few more veggies and fruits!

Finally, are you getting enough sleep? Many people don’t realize how important sleep is to your overall health. So do your best to turn off the TV and get in bet a little earlier. Make sure you’re getting as close to those 8 hours as possible!

(almost done now…)

The Financial Side:

How are you doing here? Are you in debt? That’s okay if you are, but you should be working on getting out of it. Is your salary where you want it to be (this part links into your career)? Are you putting money in a savings account each time you get paid?

After all, what good would it do you to earn a large income, and then get ruined one day due to an emergency because you had failed to save any of it? Something we should all be working on is earning, saving and investing.

A good book on this topic is The Richest Man in Babylon — I highly recommend it!!

And finally…

The Fun Side!

Are you having fun? Are you a fun person to be around? What good is it to have everything going for you in life, but to not be having fun while you’re at it?

So many people set financial goals, career goals, health goals… but they forget to set FUN goals! All I can say here is make sure you are setting aside time each week to have a little fun in your life

That’s about it! This formula, since I started actively working on it, has made my life infinitely better! There is just something to be said about living a well rounded life. After all, like Michael Clouse has said — What good would it be to have all the money in the world, and not be healthy enough to spend it? What good would it be to have the career of your dreams, but to see your life falling apart at home?

Check your spokes — work on the ones that need some help, cut back on the ones that are demanding too much time, and watch your life transform before your eyes!

The quote I leave you with today is this, by Jim Rohn:

“To have more, we must first become more.”

Wow, there’s just something about listening to a call by Michael Clouse that gets my head spinning. Whether it be a live call, his recorded material or (my personal favorite) at a live event, the information he has to share is always relevant and applicable no matter how many times you’ve heard it before.

Tonight he did a short 30 minute call as a gear-up for our upcoming Texas Event in January. On a side note — man, I can’t WAIT to see everyone again! I guess I will never understand those who grumble and complain about attending live events because  they are one of my FAVORITE things about this business! It was just a little over 2 months ago that I saw everyone last, and already I can’t wait until the next time we meet… just 88 more days!

But back to Michael Clouse… tonight he shared 5 Steps you should take if you are wanting to propel your business forward. While yes, these steps are fabulous for your Network Marketing business, they can be applied to any one’s life in a general sense as well — so here they are:

#1: Decide What You Want

Surprisingly, this one is tougher than it may initially seem. What do YOU want out of your life? What do you want? If you could create your perfect future, what would it look like? Start with something easy… start with 12 months from today. What do you want your life to look like 12 months from now? To make it even easier, don’t even worry about your WHOLE life (yet), focus on one area — if you have your own business (or are in an industry where your income is directly proportional to something you do, rather than a fixed salary) then I suggest you use your income. If you’re not, focus on something that IS in your control.

For me, what came to mind is “What number do I want to see on my check in November of 2010, and what title do I want to have in front of my name?”

#2: WHY do you want it?

Behind every good goal, there is a strong why. Why, you ask? Well, because without the WHY it becomes much to easy to say “Why not.”

As in… “Why not put this off for another day, another week, another month, another…” Yeah, you get the idea.

So — WHY do you want what you said you wanted in #1? Think about it, be honest with yourself… but here’s the trick — as Michael Clouse shared with us on tonight’s call, life WILL get in the way of your goals. If you want to achieve those goals, your WHY must be bigger than anything that could get in the way!

I have a few “whys”…
The first, I have always promised myself that I would start riding again once I reached a certain title. I’m going with the “work hard now, play hard later” mentality and I know that if I dedicate these few years to my business, then I will reach a point where I can ride every day for the rest of my life if I so choose. A little hint… if I reach the title goal I set for next November — I WILL start riding again. After a 4 year hiatus from a passion I pursued everyday for 12 years, I will finally be “back in the saddle” (quite literally, really).
My other whys are more generic… financial security, time freedom, the usual. And then one other that is very personal and close to my heart — a newly developed “why” that just might prove to be the strongest of them all.

SO — what’s your WHY?

#3: Make a Game Plan

Michael Clouse suggests something that I have found to be a gold mine in my life — break your 12 months down into 4, 90 Day chunks. Mother Nature has this one pretty well figured out with the whole seasons thing… reality is, people need “something new” every 3 months or so.

If you focus on an entire 12 months with nothing in between, chances are you will not reach your goal. You will (more than likely) procrastinate, letting the 12-month-mark sneak up on you until all of a sudden BAM! there it is and, well, you’re not much further along than you were a year ago!

3 months though… that’s not very long! So — make a game plan! Set “mini-goals” for how far you want to be along the path to your 12-month goal. For example… where do you want to be on February 1st, May 1st, August 1st, and November 1st (your 12 months)

Get it? Great! Moving on…

#4: Commit!!

Michael Clouse made an interesting point tonight… commitment has become a lost art. I love the definition of commitment he shares — “Commitment is doing the thing you said you would do, long after the feeling you said it in has passed.”

Think about that for a moment — have you ever got really excited about something, promised to do a lot of things and then, 1-2 weeks later realize you over-extended yourself and maybe you just don’t feel up to doing all the things you said you would do anymore?

Of course you have, but unfortunately, that’s too bad. You committed, you must do it anyway! Your ability to stay committed to something long after you have promised to do it says a lot about your integrity and who you are as a person. This is something that I struggle in daily — I’m really good at steps 1-3… but when it comes to sticking with the game plans I set, well… that’s something I work on daily!

This is a good example of why it’s important to have a strong WHY for your goal. A strong why will help keep you motivated and help the “feeling you said it in” to stay with you for longer.

So… BE COMMITTED!

#5: Take Action, Get Better!

Once you’ve decided exactly what it is that you want, figured out why it is that you want it, created a game plan for how to get it and committed yourself to following through (no matter what), the only thing left to do is simply DO IT!

So, what is it that you have to do to reach your goals? If you will apply these 5 steps to any area of your life you wish to improve upon, you will be amazed at what your life will look like 12-months from the time you start. What’s holding you back? Make a goal for yourself today… whether it be a business goal, a financial goal, a fitness goal, a fun goal, a spiritual goal, a relationship goal or a social/cultural goal — set ONE! And then go through the 5 steps and get started achieving it today!

The quote I leave you with is this:
“A goal without a deadline is nothing but a wish.”

I was sitting in my living room watching the Dallas Cowboys game, and I got to thinking… so, I decided to run in here and write this during halftime — enjoy

So many times we talk about goals in terms of our career or our finances — but I think having some FUN goals in your life is just as important, if not more so.

I hear what you’re saying… “Oh but I have lots of fun goals! Someday I’m going to travel the world, I’m going to own 3 vacation homes, I’m going to… ”

The key word in that phrase is, someday. What about today? What is your fun goal for this next 90 day cycle? Any takers?

Fun goals don’t have to be reserved for “someday” — you can (and should) be setting fun goals now! Short term fun goals help keep you motivated and excited about the path you are on. If all your fun goals are so far into the future that it will take years to realize them, it’s quite possible that you will lose your focus between now and then!

So no, maybe your 90 Day fun goal isn’t going to include a 6-week trip to Europe, but what about a weekend trip to the mountains, or the beach? What about tickets to a concert, or a sporting event?

You see, I’m a BIG football fan! My fun goal for the last 90 Day period was to save enough money to attend each of the Texas Tech home games — and guess what? My season tickets arrived in the mail a couple of weeks ago!

I felt SO accomplished the day I ordered those tickets — and I will continue to feel accomplished each time I walk into that stadium on gamedays.

What’s my next 90 Day fun goal? Still football related Except this time, my goal is to attend the out of town games against University of Texas and Baylor.

Fun goals are… well, they’re fun! They make you smile — they are sometimes more motivating in the “now” than a certain income or title goal. You can feel yourself experiencing the reality of that goal, and that becomes your motivation.

For me, I also can imagine how disapointed I would feel if I found myself stuck at home during the weekend of the game against UT, watching it on my living room television. That is motivation, because I know I want to BE THERE!

So have a little fun with your goals today — set a goal to have a massage, or a spa day. Set a goal to go to a concert, or a football game. Set a goal to take the kids to a nearby amusement park for the weekend.

Then, use that fun to keep you motivated, and you will find that the income and career goals will fall into place as well!

The quote I leave you with is this:

“Live and work but do not forget to play, to have fun in life and really enjoy it!

What are the areas in which you struggle the most?

If you were to be completely honest with yourself, in what areas do you struggle the most in terms of your business? Is it consistency? What about effort? Follow Up? Follow Through?

In what areas do you struggle the most in terms of your health? What about in terms of your spiritual side, your family and relationships, your finances, your social and cultural side, or your leisure time?

Everyone has struggles in each area of their life. It’s a part of human nature, it’s just how we are! But that does not mean that we should be satisfied with those struggles and stay content with where we are in life, we should constantly be pushing forward… improving upon ourselves daily.

I ask this question to others often, but probably not often enough to myself: Where will YOU be five years from now, if you don’t do something different today?

In my morning devotional today I read a quote that I have heard many times, but it was nice to be reminded:

“If you continue to do what you’ve always done, you will continue to get what you’ve always gotten.”

John Maxwell said those words, and they are very, very true. We are a society that lives for “tomorrow” — tomorrow I will start going to the gym, tomorrow I will spend more time with my kids, tomorrow I will begin putting 10% of everything I earn into savings, tomorrow…tomorrow…tomorrow.

The problem is, tomorrow is a day that is always looming, but never actually arrives. Each day is a new “today”, and if we allow ourselves we forever put off taking the action steps to achieve our goals and dreams until “tomorrow”.

Don’t be one of those people. I do it — far too often. It is one of my struggles. BUT I am constantly working towards improving on myself; finding new ways to stay reminded that TODAY is the day to begin reaching for my goals… tomorrow is simply another day to do it again.

I do my best to wake up and spend 30 minutes reading a devotional of some kind each morning. A few days ago, the lesson I read talked about “NOW” — that too many people wait for “tomorrow” to change bad habits, to wait for God’s Will to become clear in their life. But God wants to change you NOW…. not tomorrow.

When do YOU want to change YOU? Today?…or Tomorrow?

The choice is yours — you can spend another day waiting for tomorrow to begin working towards everything you’ve ever wanted, or you can take the steps that are necessary today, so that if “tomorrow” ever actually gets here, you’ll be ready for it!

The quote I leave you with is this, by Jeff Olsen:
“Time will either promote you, or expose you.”